headquarters wrote:a couple of bottles of 2 buck chuck work fine for me.

Agree.

Unless you have a 62 degree cooler, it's hard to keep good wine at the perfect temperature, and repeated heating during the day and cooling at night is going to wreck your fantastic red- though maybe not in the short life it will have during the event. If you're going with a white its a little easier as you can keep it in a cooler. I tend to favor cheap wine at BM, if I drink it at all.

However, if you need that perfect bottle of red while you're there, follow some of the sugestions in the food threads for keeping it cool.

In our camp it's about the presentaion!! :) Boata Bag's and gallon jugs.
We do tradtional Basque Boata competion every afternoon, two people one bag, one shoots the wine into the teamates mouth while spreading as far apart as possible, three teams at a time. Come by will all play! Camp jello shot.

Last year we brought a bunch of mead- it was great! probably would have been better if it was cool and didn't just sit in the tent all the time, but even hot it was really tasty. One piece of advice on mead though- Stay away from the polish kind. I tried it and decided I would rather drink something I found flowing over the floor of the porta potties

Trader Joe's here in California carries an excellent red French table wine thats three buck chuck called L'Authentique - personally way better then the two buck chuck Charles Shaw that seems to fly off the shelves in their stores. I would'nt bring a bottle of finer wine but two years ago I tried to bring a bottle of Moet & Chandon White Star that got thrashed by the long drive.

El vino is a wonderful compliment to the evening meal on the playa. It's a great social glue when shared, and often is a big surprise to campmates. I brought some mid-priced Cal red's (even Merlot, sorry) last year. Kept them in the cardboard box with dividers and they all arrived without incident. Just be super careful with glass bottles. Trying to clean up wet, broken glass on the playa is totally fucked! The first year I brought a "box" of my favorite mexican wine. (to borrow a line from Lady's Man.) Although a bit of a bite on the first glass, from there on it wasn't bad. Plenty to share, choke on, with others. Box crushes nicely for pack-out. And no glass shards in your feet!

Almost forgot. One of my campmates broke out a bottle of champagne last year, just as the burn began. Fucking Dom yet! It was perfectly chilled, but we didn't have any glasses so we passed the bottle around like a canteen and everybody shared in the celebration like some pagan communion.

Ooh- champagne! What a playa treat that would be. Have to be icy cold, though. <ponders a cooler full of White Star>
I did a bunch of research on boxed wines before the Burn last year and the Black Box merlot was highly recommended. I know, merlot! Never did end up cracking it open, though, and it came home with me. Will probably make it to the playa this year, too.

Be who you are and say what you feel... for those that mind don't matter and those that matter don't mind.

We'll be rockin' you out from 4am til 11am with bubbly bass-tastic house music as you watch the sunrise over the playa and dance the AM hours away... and drink some champagne from our free bar while you boogie.

We want to create a home of warmth and positive energy during the AM hours. Together with a team of artists, musicians, circus performers, dancers, planners, bartenders, builders, architects, thinkers, dreamers, and lovers, we are going to bring invigorating house music to the Burning Man community and a dance floor that gets everyone moving and shaking. We'll offer you hookahs and champagne to relax and a comfy chill space to enjoy the sounds while resting your feet after a night of partying. We want to provide an environment conducive to connecting: spiritually, conversationally, and energetically. Don't forget our activities -- Sunrise Circus playtime and workshops will be going on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday mornings.

For general drinking I am doing boxed reds and whites for Calimocho and various Sangria related experiments.

This year I am bringing a couple of mixed cases of quality whites/pinks/reds/fortified for a dinner I am planning and some other random activities throughout the week. Still debating bubbles... I could seriously use the sabering practice

I want to pick up a couple of half bottles of a tasty Syrah for the backpack... sunrise deep playa with a quality wine? yep!!! 750s are a bit more cumbersome than I like.

I do really enjoy having some good juice available just in case the moment strikes. Historically I have found keeping them wrapped in blankets/towels and in the shade will greatly reduce heat spikes. Of course I have never tried to manage a couple of cases so I am crossing my fingers.

Charlie Parker wrote:People take the movie Sideways too seriously. My understanding is that the main character's prized bottle of wine is either a Merlot.

Pinot doesn't have a rich enough flavor for me. I prefer Syrah/Shiraz and Merlot.

I'm a Shiraz/Syrah girl. A nice Beaujolais now and then hits the spot.

Off topic ramble: I lived in Shiraz in '74. Didn't like wine then; I was a gauche teenager. Drank Russian vodka because I only had to tell the man in the liquor store that is was for my father and he'd sell it to me. Mixed it with Tang. Ah, youth.

I'm more of a 'beerdrate by day, distilled spirits by night' kind of guy, but I developed a fondness for shiraz on the playa at my first burn (2004). Yellowtail, I think, they have (or used to have) 1.5l bottles of the stuff at Costco at a reasonable price. I also like to bring a few bottles of champagne - the decadence of a mimosa is just magnified to epic proportions out there.

I regret not having a bottle or two of good red on the playa last year. I will not make that mistake again. I think they'll keep fine if I let them stay in the RV until needed.

Come on over to One Eye'd Jacks at Camp DOA - we pour nothing but good wine - red, white, French rose' and decent champagne. It holds up just fine during the week at Burning Man. In fact, a couple of weeks ago I pulled a viognier out of my cellar and realized it had playa dust on it from last year - it was still fine !!

I regret not having a bottle or two of good red on the playa last year. I will not make that mistake again. I think they'll keep fine if I let them stay in the RV until needed.

Come on over to One Eye'd Jacks at Camp DOA - we pour nothing but good wine - red, white, French rose' and decent champagne. It holds up just fine during the week at Burning Man. In fact, a couple of weeks ago I pulled a viognier out of my cellar and realized it had playa dust on it from last year - it was still fine !!

You'll be helping me get back some floor space in my cellar too !!!

Scribbles One eye'd Jacks into playa notepad

Burning Man isn't about the stuff you see when you get there ....it's about the people that brought that stuff there